Amid Freak Out, Dorsey Debunks Idea that Twitter Will Become More Like Facebook
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There’s a meltdown happening on Twitter over a that Twitter may soon switch to an “algorithmic” method of displaying tweets by relevance, instead of the current way of showing them in reverse-chronological order, like a backward timeline.
In other words, Twitter might be thinking of becoming more like Facebook, which guesses what users will be interested in and shows those posts first. People can always switch back to a straight timeline on Facebook, but the setting isn’t easy to find.
Twitter did not comment on the report, but CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to debunk it late Saturday afternoon:
Hello Twitter! Regarding : I want you all to know we’re always listening. We never planned to reorder timelines next week.
— Jack (@jack) Twitter is live. Twitter is real-time. Twitter is about who & what you follow. And Twitter is here to stay! By becoming more Twitter-y.
— Jack (@jack) Look at “while you were away” at the top of your TL. Tweets you missed from people you follow. Pull to refresh to go back to real-time.
— Jack (@jack) I *love* real-time. We love the live stream. It’s us. And we’re going to continue to refine it to make Twitter feel more, not less, live!
— Jack (@jack) Twitter can help make connections in real-time based on dynamic interests and topics, rather than a static social/friend graph. We get it.
— Jack (@jack) He was reacting to some pretty over-the-top tweets. A hash tag, , was created to talk about the rumor:
My reaction to ‘s upcoming agorithmic timeline:
— Rick Garrett (@ricktgarrett) One of the great rewards of being an adult is deciding ON YOUR OWN who (and what) you should be interested in.
— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) People like Twitter because its not Facebook, now they’re making it more like Facebook
— HarryPotterReactions (@PotterReacts) Waking up to tweets
— Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie) Leaked image of what Twitter will look like after the update.
— egg (@lifeofanegg) me trying to find a new social media site while twitter destroys itself
— My baby Benze (@viewsfromthesix) This proves a few things.
First, people on Twitter like nothing more than complaining about Twitter on Twitter.
Second, people hate change.
For journalists and hardcore Twitter users — who are few — the reverse-chronological timeline is essential, as it’s the only way to navigate the stream of real-time information provided by the people and publications they follow. Journalists particularly like it because it lets them see breaking news super fast and also gives them a record of who was “first” on a story, which is a point of pride that the rest of the world could not possibly care less about.
The fact is, Twitter needs to increase engagement. It hasn’t been adding significant numbers of new users for over a year now and has
Showing people the information they’re most likely to be interested in, rather than every meaningless tweetstorm and inside-y argument in precise reverse order, might actually make the service more interesting and approachable for the billions who don’t use Twitter at all.
There’s a meltdown happening on Twitter over a that Twitter may soon switch to an “algorithmic” method of displaying tweets by relevance, instead of the current way of showing them in reverse-chronological order, like a backward timeline.
In other words, Twitter might be thinking of becoming more like Facebook, which guesses what users will be interested in and shows those posts first. People can always switch back to a straight timeline on Facebook, but the setting isn’t easy to find.
Twitter did not comment on the report, but CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to debunk it late Saturday afternoon: